What’s the best way to ask somebody if they’d like to do something with you? In this BBC How to… make informal invitations programme, we look at how to make informal invitations, and in particular, how to ask someone if they’d like to have a drink with you. We also hear some different ways to accept invitations.

William: Hello and welcome to How to… the programme from BBC Learning English that tells you… well… it tells you how to say things.

My name’s William Kremer and over the next three weeks, I’m going to be telling you how to invite people to do things and say yes or no to other people’s invitations. And today we’re looking at informal invitations, and in particular, how to ask someone whether he or she would like to go for a pint. If you live in the UK, or have ever been to the UK, then you must know what I mean by ‘a pint’. I mean, a glass of beer, usually served in a pub: a pint of beer. We also often say ‘a drink’ to mean an alcoholic drink such as beer. So, let’s imagine that it’s five o’clock on a Friday and you’ve had a hard week and it’s time for a pint. What’s a good way of asking other people if they’d like a drink too?
Well, in the next clip, Diarmuid is going to invite Catherine out for a pint. See if you can hear what words Diarmuid uses to do this.

Diarmuid: Catherine, I’m just going for a drink after work this evening – do you fancy a pint?
Catherine: Ooh, I’d love one.
William: Diarmuid asks, ‘Do you fancy a pint?’ In British English, if you ‘fancy’ something, it means that right now you want to have it. For example, ‘I fancy an ice cream’, ‘I fancy a hamburger’.

Diarmuid: Catherine, I’m just going for a drink after work this evening – do you fancy a pint?
Catherine: Ooh, I’d love one.
William: Catherine says that she’d love a pint, so she’s agreeing to go for a drink with Diarmuid. Now let’s hear another way of inviting someone out for a pint:
Diarmuid: Are you up for a pint after work Catherine?
William: Diarmuid asked Catherine if she was ‘up for a pint’.

Diarmuid: Are you up for a pint after work Catherine?
William: If someone is up for something, it often means that he or she would like to do something or try something. This is a common expression in spoken English.

Diarmuid: Are you up for a pint after work Catherine?
William: OK, let’s look at a third way of inviting someone out for a pint.

Diarmuid: Do you feel like a pint, Catherine?
William: In this situation, if you feel like something, you fancy it. And so the question for Diarmuid is, ‘Do you feel like a pint?’
Diarmuid: Do you feel like a pint, Catherine?
William: Now, see if you can hear a difference between the following sentences:
Diarmuid: Do you feel like a pint, Catherine?
Diarmuid: Do you feel like going for a pint, Catherine?
William: Well, the second sentence features a gerund – ‘going’. We can use gerunds to talk about activities instead of objects. The activity we’re talking about here is going for a pint. Listen again.
Diarmuid: Do you feel like going for a pint, Catherine?
William: In this situation, Diarmuid can choose whether to talk about the pint itself – ‘Do you feel like a pint’ – or the activity of going for a pint – ‘Do you feel like going for a pint?’ But, sometimes we don’t have a choice. For example, we can’t say ‘Do you feel like a museum?’ because you can’t buy a museum! So we would have to say ‘Do you feel like going to a museum with me?’
There are also gerund forms for the other questions we’ve heard:
Diarmuid: Do you fancy going for a pint, Catherine?
Diarmuid: Are you up for going for a pint, Catherine?
William: Now sometimes, in very informal situations like this, you don’t even have to ask a question in order to invite people to do something. What do I mean? Well, listen to the following conversation. Diarmuid has just finished working…

Diarmuid: Right, that’s me finished! I think I might go down the bar for a pint…
Catherine: I’m up for that!
William: Diarmuid tells everyone that he’s going to the bar. He hasn’t asked them if they want to come, but it’s clear that they can come if they want. And, as it happens, Catherine is up for it.

Diarmuid: Right, that’s me finished! I think I might go down the bar for a pint…
Catherine: I’m up for that!
William: Now, a quick word about accepting invitations. At the start of the programme, we heard Catherine say yes like this:
Catherine: Ooh, I’d love one.
William: But if Catherine’s being asked to do an activity, the response is slightly different:
Diarmuid: Do you fancy going for a pint, Catherine?
Catherine: Ooh I’d love to, what time?
William: If we’re talking about activities, we should say ‘I’d love to’ not ‘I’d love one’. There are lots of other ways of accepting invitations. She could say something like:
Catherine: That’d be fun.
William: Or she could say:
Catherine: That sounds lovely.
William: Or she could just say:
Catherine: OK, cool.
William: Now if you’ve been listening to this programme and you’ve been thinking, ‘But I don’t like beer!’ well, we’re going to be looking at the more complicated business of saying ‘no’ to invitations in a separate programme. But, for today that’s me finished. I think I might go down the bar for a pint…